Introduction: Pathogens and Iron Requirement
E. coli accumulate large amounts of iron via multiple transport systems including enterochelin transport system (McIntosh and Earhart, 1977).
Three tetracyclines were found to possess iron-chelating activity as part of the antibiotic activity. (Greinier et al., 2000)
Clostridium perfringens produced larger colonies, with…ferredoxin, than tha...

Ibrahim,Thank you for your question. The calculated iron content of the basal diets came out to be about 70 ppm. And so our treatments were 20 ppm additional added to those diets. In earlier research that we conducted, it showed that these type diets needed supplemental iron. The industry values for supplementation, that we have found, range from 20 to 60 ppm additional iron. We chose to go with the lower inclusion rates in this study. One of the other considerations is "How available is the iron from the feed sources?" Very little research I have been able to find has shown iron bio-availability for individual feed-stuffs. What I have found is that if the iron is in the ferric form it is poorly available and if it is in the ferrous from it is more available. Soil contamination and most sources (not of animal origin) are in the ferric form, thus low available iron. I hope this information helps.

Ibrahim El Idrissi,The chelator would be used to reduce the availability of the ferrous form not ferric. I assume citric acid could be used, but it might have an impact on other minerals (or trace minerals) as well so it would take a complex series of studies to evaluate level of citric acid to include and also what levels of different minerals might influence that inclusion rate. So my positioning right now would be to use SQM Iron to supplement rather than inorganic iron sources until we have a lot more information on other products.Thanks for your question and interest,Jack Garrett

Popoola Adesola Correct, the SQM Iron would have to go into a supplemental mineral mix. It should be used in the mineral mix as a replacement for any inorganic iron sources that were used to formulate the supplement. The SQM Iron is not a "antibiotic" like compound, rather what we are doing is limiting the access pathogens have to the iron which is a critical mineral for their growth and detrimental activity while not limiting availability to the broiler. In essence what we are accomplishing is starving the microorganisms of a necessary nutrient, to limit their growth rate.

It seems good but let discuss more and more in detail and then evaluate the performance of the chickens. And what about the other elements such as Selenium, and vit E, also not only the performance should also evaluate the enzymes those found with in the chickens body.

Dear authors Jack Garrett and others!Your work, regardless of the results, is of great importance, as it helps to develop a new line of research on the use of organic compounds of trace elements. Their role can not be seen exclusively in improving the availability of minerals for animals, perhaps in some cases this is not even the main thing. This assumption is confirmed only by the different effectiveness of their use, which is registered in hundreds of experiments.Specifically to your work, I want to note that the effectiveness of organic sources of iron will depend on the stability of the compounds used. Please repeat the research and test the effect of iron chelates with low (6-8), medium (11-14) and high (20-30) stability constants. You will get original new information. I wish you success.

Dr Valeriy Kryukov We have conducted this broiler study twice and seen very similar results in both study with regard to reduced pathogen levels in the intestinal tract as well as improved performance by the broilers. We are currently involved in conducting pure culture studies on different strains of pathogens (E coli, Clostridium p., Salmonella, Cocci). The initial findings are showing the same response on reducing the rate of pathogen growth, but the research has been slowed down or interrupted due to the "stay in place" rules in the USA. We hope to continue this research as soon as restrictions loosen.As for the other chelated sources, I'm not in the position to conduct research on other companies products. My suggestion would be for those companies to conduct similar research to ours to validate their effectiveness. I'm concerned as you are the products that aren't as effective will use our research to support their untested products.Thanks for your question and interest,Jack Garrett

Dear Jack Garrett,Conducting research on chickens requires a lot of effort and time.Preliminary research is best done on culture in vitro. In vitro results can not be transferred to animals (in vivo), but they will allow you to exclude non-effective options.It is good to study one product and be a patriot of your company, but comparative research provides more information. If Your product is the most active, it will give you additional information to confirm your competitive advantages. If the product is weak, you can compare it with others and understand how to improve it.Before conducting research, you need to find information about the dependence of E. coli, Clostridium, Salmonella and other bacteria of interest to you on specific mineral elements. If a particular bacterium requires iron (or another element) for growth, then it is necessary to test chelates with different stability and choose one that is weakly available or unavailable to the bacterium, but available to the animal. There may be another option: create an excess of iron so that it disrupts the metabolism of the bacteria, but does not adversely affect the animals. This can be adjusted using chelates with different stability constants. The stability constant can be determined by Gao et al. (2012).I wish you success!

I agree with you completely. But the situation is I'm trying to position a product for the best situation for the company that I work for at this time. It is definitely important for the "science" of feeding livestock for optimum/maximum production both performance and economics. Research on multiple chelated products in the market is absolutely necessary for the scientific community, but not necessary for individual companies to conduct. While we might do competitive product research for internal knowledge, most of that research would not be released to the general or scientific public from the aspect of potentially losing market share, should products be similar and then pricing becomes the only issue. To have a robust research program in place, that money has to come from sales of the product, if a company isn't doing that research then their price could be more lower due to not supporting the scientific community.What we have been doing is trying to work with customers and potential customers using the products in their facilities to verify efficacy. Also, we are expanding the markets, looking into the swine industry, to see if this same concept can be used with baby pigs and with the breeding herd to reduce the contamination of pathogens to offspring from mothers. Validation across species of livestock has potential for validation as well as solving other problems that products are having trying to deal with antibiotic removal and environmental improvement.I enjoy your comments and discussion. It is researchers like you that can truly help to push the science of chelated trace minerals forward with scientific explanation of mode of action and not just industry demonstration of producer value/profitability.

Dear Jack Garrett!You state that: "Research on multiple chelated products in the market is absolutely necessary for the scientific community, but not necessary for individual companies to conduct." But how can you prove that your product is better than the competitor's?

There is some research that we have showing our product is different than other chelates on the market, but we haven't conducted extensive research on all other competitors in the market place. That would be cost prohibitive for one company to test all other products. What we have done is show the benefit of the SQM chelated products for animal production and nutrition. The other companies need to show the value that their products bring to the marketplace and producers through valid and repeatable research. There are many products on the market that have no support and use the research of other companies to validate the category (organic trace minerals) and then just market an unproven product at a cheap price. There is a definite need for research that explain the mode of action of their products with scientific validation, not just assumption of mode of action due to a performance response that might not be repeatable.

The next step would be for independent third parties to compare and contrast the products. Otherwise, if one believes the validity of the product validation research it comes down to a price per unit of response. So we don't need to prove our product is better than the competition, but that it is an effective product, from a company that provides high quality customer service and support, and provides an economic price to the producer.

Thanks for your comment. Blood sources and most animal sources tend to act like iron sulfate, highly available to both pathogens and host animal. I believe that products like SQM Iron, which is chelated with a polysaccharide source is more difficult for the pathogens to utilize. The pure culture work that we are currently conducting is indicating that the polysaccharide chelate of iron doesn't provide the iron availability to pathogens that iron sulfate does. I've talked with many poultry nutritionists that have seen issues with getting animal meat products too high in diets, thinking now that it may be iron bioavailability may be an issue that causes pathogen problems in those diets and not the quality of the product. Perhaps, I'll be able to evaluate those animal products in our pure culture studies. Thanks.